Finding private clients as a self-employed carer: the routes compared

Read down the chips and a pattern shows. The routes at the top cost nothing to use and leave every job with you. The routes at the bottom take jobs off you, and in return you pay a fee, accept a wage below the rate the client is charged, or become somebody's employee. You can use more than one at once: nothing in the contract you sign with a PrimeCarers client stops you working for other people as well.

This page is about hourly visits. Live-in placements are found in different places, and where to look for live-in care work covers them. Once you have a few clients, how to succeed as a private carer covers turning a first booking into a full week. The carer resources hub has the guides on pay, checks and tax, and how to become a self-employed carer sets out what going fully independent adds to your workload.

Word of mouth is slow at first because it depends on clients you already have. Local routes help where people already know each other, such as community and faith groups, lunch clubs and noticeboards where older people and their families go. Skills for Care, which works with the adult social care workforce in England, encourages independent carers to join local and national lists and directories, and some councils point people towards a register or finder service for personal assistants, which the last section covers.

Having more than one client matters for another reason too. Whether you are self-employed is decided by how the work runs in practice, not by what you call it, and gov.uk's own guide to working for yourself lists having several customers at the same time, and deciding how, where and when you do the work, among the signs that you are running a business. A carer who works full time for one family, on hours that family sets, can look more like their employee. HMRC's Check Employment Status for Tax tool gives HMRC's view on a particular arrangement, and either you or the family can use it.

A family who found you through a friend will still want to see your DBS certificate and proof of insurance. The documents you need as a self-employed carer lists what to keep together, and how much to charge as a self-employed carer covers setting the rate you put in writing.

The PrimeCarers contract is published in full and is a useful model even if you never use the platform. It asks for 48 hours' notice to end hourly care, charges bank holidays at one and a half times the normal rate and Christmas Day at twice, and treats a visit the client cancels as payable unless it is for unplanned hospitalisation, illness or another reason you both agree. The contract for visits from 8 December 2025 has the full wording. For mileage, HMRC's approved rate is 55p a mile from 6 April 2026, and it is the usual figure to agree, in advance and in writing, with a client who wants you to drive them. For your own tax, gov.uk's simplified expenses rates for vehicles for 2026 to 2027 are the same 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in a car or van, and 25p a mile after that. Travel time and mileage for carers covers what you can charge and what you can claim against tax.

If you answer an advert, you have to do for yourself what nobody else is doing. Before a first visit, ask for the full name and address of the person you will be caring for, and ring back on a landline or a number you can check. Tell somebody you trust where you are going and when you expect to leave, and agree a time you will message them. Meet the family in the home with them present before you agree to work alone there. Risk assessment for carers has a template for looking at a new home before the work starts, and the Health and Safety Executive publishes guidance for people who work alone. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust, a personal safety charity, has advice for lone workers as well.

On payment, send a written invoice for every week or month you work, even to a family who pays in cash, and keep a copy. If somebody owes you money and will not pay, gov.uk explains how to make a court claim for money in England and Wales. There is a court fee, which starts at £35 for a claim of up to £300, and for claims of £10,000 or less that the other side disputes the court arranges a free mediation appointment by phone first.

1. 1

   Register a profile

   Free

   Set out your experience, the kind of care you offer, where you work and the rate you charge. Your skills and experience go on your profile in your own words. There is no place for certificates, but you can invite past employers or families to leave a reference on your profile. We do not verify either, so have referees and certificates ready for a family who asks.
2. 2

   Complete the checks

   Before families can see you

   A digital identity check through Yoti, a right to work check, an enhanced DBS check issued within the last 18 months, and a recorded video interview of 14 questions, taken online in one sitting of about 45 minutes, with one retake of each answer. The interview looks at how you care for people; it is not a clinical test.
3. 3

   Families search, and you can look at jobs

   Once your profile is live

   Families searching near them can find your profile and message you. You can also look at the jobs families have posted near you and reply to the ones you want.
4. 4

   Agree the visits with the family

   Between you and the family

   You talk to the family, decide whether the work suits you, and agree the visits. The standard contract covers notice, cancellations, bank holidays and expenses.
5. 5

   Get paid through the platform

   After the care

   The client pays through PrimeCarers, the commission comes out, and the rest reaches you. Nothing is deducted for tax, so that part is yours.

On PrimeCarers the rate you set is the rate the family pays, and the commission comes out of it rather than being added on top. It is 20% on visits of less than six hours, 15% on a single visit of six hours or more, and 12.5% on live-in care, and the VAT on it is paid out of our commission. So a carer who charges £20 an hour for a two-hour visit keeps £16 of each hour. Carers on PrimeCarers typically advertise £18 to £25 an hour, with our fee included. Registering costs nothing. You bring your own enhanced DBS, and we check it alongside your identity, your right to work and an online interview. What carers earn on PrimeCarers sets out the commission in full and what a week of work comes to.

Payment follows each client's billing, so it depends on the client rather than arriving on one fixed day for everyone, and an unpaid invoice is chased for you rather than by you.

What a platform cannot do is create demand where there is none. Families search, compare and choose, and a profile in a town where few families are looking will not be busy because it is registered. Looking at the jobs families have already posted near you is the quickest way to see whether there is work where you live. If you want families near you to be able to find you, you can register as a carer on PrimeCarers, or first see the carer jobs open near you.

PrimeCarers is one of several introductory platforms. Each sets its own checks, contract and fees in its own carer terms, so read those before you register anywhere and compare them on the four questions in the table above.

People who get care and support from their council can ask for it as a direct payment and arrange it themselves, and gov.uk says that somebody who does this may become an employer if they pay someone to care for them. Skills for Care describes this as an individual employer directly employing a personal assistant. Some councils are cautious about PAs being self-employed. Warwickshire County Council, for example, tells people on direct payments that very few carers or PAs working for them can be classed as self-employed, and points them to a PA finder run by a support organisation. What families are told about direct payments and what families are told about personal assistants show the other side of the arrangement. If a family asks you to become their PA, working as a personal assistant explains why most PAs are employed, when self-employment is possible, and what to ask for in writing.

Agency work is the other steady route while you build up. You work for the agency, not for the families you visit, and gov.uk's guide to agency workers' rights says an agency cannot charge you a fee for finding you work and must pay at least the National Minimum Wage for all the hours you work. The trade is that the agency sets your wage, which is usually lower than what it charges the client for the same visit, and it decides who you see.

You can do both at once. gov.uk is clear that someone can be employed and self-employed at the same time, and your payslip income and your self-employed profit come together on one Self Assessment return. Check your agency contract before you take private clients, because some agencies have their own rules about working for families you meet through them. What care workers are paid in the UK has the employed pay figures if you are weighing an agency wage against your own rate.